There’s Now a “Selfie” Section in the iOS App Store

Apple has responded to our selfie addiction by adding a category specifically for selfie apps in the App Store. Such enablers, those Apple folks. Now you don’t have to be embarrassed for having an entire folder—named selfie—dedicated solely to selfie apps. My personal favorite selfie app? Faceback. It got some horrible reviews out of the gate. Apps such as Snapchat, Facetune, and Everyday are featured. Some you need to pay for, most are free. We’ve already seen some hugely popular selfies this year thanks to Ellen DeGeneres at the Oscars (above).

Oxford Dictionaries, one of the most respected authorities on the English language, actually bestowed “selfie” as its word for the year in 2013. Talk about getting recognition. What began as typical teenage vanity has become an unstoppable phenomena. Blame our social media addictions, our craving for acceptance. We like taking pictures of ourselves and sharing them with friends. Yes, even in front of plane crashes (where thankfully nobody was in juried).

According to Oxford Dictionaries, the word selfie first appeared back in 2002, though it was used to described an “undignified scene.” Thanks to the increase in smartphone accessibility, however, the word has evolved into an all-new meaning, defined thusly:

selfie noun, informal
(also selfy; plural selfies)

a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website

Oxford Dictionary provides a pretty extensive look at the word’s history, so if you’re curious, follow the link right here. Otherwise, you probably haven’t taken a selfie in at least five minutes, so better head on over to Apple’s App Store to check out its new selfie section. I wonder what kind of new sections we’ll come up with next.